Freedom to Make Decisions
February 1, 2022
BY Myrna Norman
On December 1, 2021, the Canadian Centre for Elder Law (CCEL) held a Disability Rights Gathering in Vancouver, BC. The gathering was a part of our Engaging People Living with Dementia Project. The goal of the project is to change how healthcare decision-making is approached so that people living with dementia have a voice and meaningfully engage in the everyday decisions that matter to them.
Myrna Norman is a member of the project’s Dementia Advisory Council. She is also an advocate for people living with dementia, their carers, families, and communities. Myrna became an advocate after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2009. She wrote the following poem to share at the December 1 gathering.
Freedom to Make Decisions
By Myrna Norman
Decisions are based on many things
Financial, health and education
Are just a some of the barriers.
We must find within to request,
To demand and to be equal,
To be responsible to ourselves.
No more stigma, fears of not fitting in
Not measuring up or not feeling valued.
To be free is to learn and to care
For ourselves so we can care for others.
The strength to be the best we can be
Thereby granting us the right to
Make our own decisions based on
Our needs, not other’s perceptions.
We have those choices.
Our strength lives within, grasp it.
We look at reason, we look at benefits
Sometimes we rely on emotions
Sometimes we rely on memories
Often we weigh the benefits
Or think of the consequences
Once we make a decision
Society often rebukes.
Accept counsel, stay the course.
We all deserve to be happy
We all deserve to feel joy
We deserve to believe we have choices
We deserve to believe we have rights
We deserve to believe we have authority
We deserve to believe in our principle
Believing in our Rights, our Human Rights
Offers the ladder to our successes.
